Intel Unveils Skinny New ‘Ultrabook’ Laptop, Tablet Roadmap

Asus' UX21 will be one of many Intel-powered Ultrabooks to debut towards the end of 2011. Photo courtesy Asus

Intel announced plans Monday for a new series of slim laptops powered by the company’s next-generation processors, set to debut at the end of 2011.

Dubbed the “Ultrabook,” the skinny devices measure in at less than an inch thick, cost less than $1,000, and will initially run on Intel’s second-generation core chips.

In the first half of 2012, Ultrabooks will run on Intel’s “Ivy Bridge” chipset, the world’s first mass-produced 3-D–transistor–based chipset using Intel’s 22-nanometer etching process.

“Our customers are demanding an uncompromised computing experience in a lightweight, highly portable design that responds to their needs quickly,” said Asus executive chairman Jonney Shih, whose company is producing one of the first Ultrabooks, the UX21.

Intel VP Sean Maloney said Ultrabooks will make up more than 40 percent of the market by the end of 2012, as they contain many “tablet-like features” coupled with “thin, elegant form factors” and “best-in-class performance.”

When Intel announced its “Ivy Bridge” chipset, analysts speculated it was only a matter of time before the low-power, high-performance processors would trickle into the laptop market.

“Moore’s Law is alive and well, at least for the next several generations of processors down to 14 [nanometers] and below,” Forrester analyst Rich Fichera wrote in a blog post. Named after Intel founder Gordon Moore, Moore’s Law essentially states the number of transistors that can be placed on a chip will double every two years, and will get cheaper as time passes. “Intel has no intention of yielding primacy as the world’s leader in semiconductor process,” Fichera wrote.

Apple’s MacBook Air models encompass a number of the features that Intel’s Ultrabooks tout — including a thickness of less than an inch, and a design similar to Asus’ slick metal finish — but they’re powered by Intel’s Core 2 Duo chips, which look outdated compared to Intel’s second generation “Sandy Bridge” chips.

All three device lines — the Ultrabook, the MacBook Air and Google’s forthcoming Chromebooks — are relatively streamlined compared to past netbook and notebook models, cutting down on external ports and internal drives to minimize thickness and weight.

“It’s time we got rid of a lot of the legacy ports on these devices,” Gartner analyst Ken Dulaney told Wired.com. “As we move to more modern connections like high-speed USB 3.0 or cloud-based computing, we’re ready for a jump like this.”

However, these devices may come with shorter shelf lives, Dulaney added.

“All these products will probably come with nonremovable batteries,” Dulaney said, “which means they’ll be cheaper, but you’ll probably have to replace them every two years. That’s disappointing, but its the way the industry is shifting.”

Intel also revealed its tablet plans for 2011 on Monday. As it was previously speculated, the company debuted its Z670 “Oak Trail” line of processors on 10 different tablets at the Computex technology trade show in Taipei.

Intel’s chips haven’t thus far made a forceful entry into the mobile space, a market now dominated by chips based on rival ARM architecture designs. Graphics-processing-unit and chipset-design company Nvidia currently holds the largest stake in the tablet space, as its Tegra 2 processor powers tablets made by Samsung, Motorola and Acer, among other major manufacturers.

The company also discussed plans for another chipset designed specifically for smartphones and tablets, codenamed “Medfield.” Maloney said Medfield chips will be optimized for both low power and high performance, and he highlighted this by showing off a Medfield design powering Android version 3.0 (Honeycomb).

Intel expects production on Medfield-designed chips later this year, with Medfield-powered tablets to hit shelves in the first half of 2012. Along with Android, Medfield tablets will run on other operating systems, including Nokia’s MeeGo.